Jakub Rozalski's series called 1920+ sees deadly machines roaming the countryside during the Polish-Soviet War.

Jakub Rozalski's series called 1920+ sees deadly machines roaming the countryside during the Polish-Soviet War.

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One of Polish painter Jakub Rozalski's favorite subjects is the Polish-Soviet War, a 1919-21 conflict in between Poland and Russia on the often-frozen ground of Eastern Europe. He just likes to add a little something to the scenes: hulking killer robots.

Rozalski painted this series, called 1920+, in which he inserts giant mechanical walkers, steampunk Soviet exoskeletons, and bizarre retro-futuristic weaponry into otherwise ordinary scenes of war and suffering set in that year.

In an interview with Vice, the artist said that the Battle of Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back helped to spark the idea of mech warfare on snow—he was always a fan of sci-fi and fantasy movies on VHS. He tells PM, though, that "history inspires me much more - the first steam machines, armored trains, first tanks from WWI." He also cites inspiration from Jules Verne and Stanisław Lem, a Polish science fiction writer. He then combined that aesthetic with something that displayed his Polish patriotism.

One of Polish painter Jakub Rozalski's favorite subjects is the Polish-Soviet War, a 1919-21 conflict in between Poland and Russia on the often-frozen ground of Eastern Europe. He just likes to add a little something to the scenes: hulking killer robots.

Rozalski painted this series, called 1920+, in which he inserts giant mechanical walkers, steampunk Soviet exoskeletons, and bizarre retro-futuristic weaponry into otherwise ordinary scenes of war and suffering set in that year.

In an interview with Vice, the artist said that the Battle of Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back helped to spark the idea of mech warfare on snow—he was always a fan of sci-fi and fantasy movies on VHS. He tells PM, though, that "history inspires me much more - the first steam machines, armored trains, first tanks from WWI." He also cites inspiration from Jules Verne and Stanisław Lem, a Polish science fiction writer. He then combined that aesthetic with something that displayed his Polish patriotism.